


The Butterfly Tattoo

by noodlerdoodler



Category: Osemanverse, Solitaire - Alice Oseman
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 13:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16285859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlerdoodler/pseuds/noodlerdoodler
Summary: Lauren always assumed that there wasn’t anybody worth fancying. After all, those boys at Truham? She could only pretend to fawn over them. Little did she know that she was falling in love with somebody else- somebody she didn’t expect.Written for Osemanverse Big Bang 2018.





	The Butterfly Tattoo

It’s an unusually warm day in the middle of August and Our Lot have bunked off school for the afternoon to enjoy some time in the sunshine. At Becky’s request, we’ve sloped off to the local park, armed with a box of melting ice lollies and enough sun cream for a Roman army. I wasn’t sure when she suggested the park but to be honest, it’s turning out to be a right laugh. It reminds me of primary school. You know, when you were little and nothing seemed to matter except hanging out with your mates at the park? I miss those days. 

When I was in primary school, nobody really cared about boys or dating or anything like that. Or maybe they did and I just didn't notice. People like to tease me sometimes about the fact I can be a little bit oblivious to what's going on. Like, I'm the one who says “oh!” and starts pissing myself five minutes after everybody else has forgotten the joke. Anyway, in primary school, none of these teenage things seemed to matter. People cared more about whether you could make it across the monkey bars than if you had a crush on a boy in your year. 

Once we got to secondary school, people changed around me. My friends would admit, giggling, which football or rugby boy they had a crush on. The bolder girls would hold boyfriends for a week, much to the awe of the other girls. I didn't understand the boy-crazy creatures that my friends had turned into but I knew well enough to run with the pack and squeal about boys too. I'd even been out with a handful of them, (bowling, cinema, Nandos, you know the drill), but there was no spark. I always thought maybe I was just a late bloomer so I kept up the pretence, hoping if I pretended hard enough it might come true. I'm in my last year of sixth form now and it's so easy to pretend, I don't even have to try. 

Back to the park, I decide to laze off and find somewhere to sunbathe. After slathering myself in a generous helping of suncream, I retreat to the top of the climbing frame and stretch out there, reckoning it’s the optimal spot to get some sun. I close my eyes, enjoying the feeling of the heat washing over me. It’s just the right level of hot just after warm but before boiling. I could almost fall asleep, I'm so relaxed in the afternoon sun, but it's no long before somebody joins me. 

I hear somebody clambering up the steps and hear a pretty voice, “Enjoying yourself there?”

I don’t have to look to know that it’s Rita but I open one eye anyway, grinning lazily at her. She’s wearing dark shorts and a bright tank top to show off her toned body, (she started going to the gym a few months back, putting the rest of Our Lot to shame); a few wisps of her dark hair are escaping from the knot on top of her head and sticking to the back of her neck. She’s truly one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen in my life and I swear I’m not just saying that because she's my friend. I went to primary school with Rita, so I know she’s always been beautiful, even when she had paint all over her hands and daisies knotted haphazardly into her hair. She was one of the first of Our Lot to hit puberty, looking awkward and mismatched at first, and I remember boys used to bully her by reaching through her shirt and snapping her bra straps against her shoulders. They regretted it when she grew into her figure one summer in Year 10, cut her hair, and started popping in contacts- which, of course, the boys thought made her look “well hotter than before”. I don’t like to generalise but when things like that happen, it seems to me that most boys are entitled scumbags. Rita didn’t go out with any of the stupid lads, who kept telling her how much better she looked now, and instead stuck to quiet, studious boys. The kinds her parents approved of and the kinds she seemed to approve of too. 

Not missing a beat, Rita grins at me. 

“Much more now that you’re here,” I reply, raising my sunglasses to wink at her.

She snorts with laughter and joins me on the top of the climbing frame, forcing me to budge up so that there’s enough room for her too. Overhead, the sun is blinding and it feels like we’re inside one of those beachy postcards that people send you when they go away on holiday. I can almost picture us on a beach holiday of cute bikinis, sweet cocktails, and lounging in the sun. I can’t remember the last time I went to a real beach. I am incredibly conscious of Rita lying next to me, my skin tickling with an awareness of how close her body is to mine, and I can hear the gentle sound of her chest rising and falling. Rita smells like expensive body spray and summer sweat. I don’t know why but when her knee bumps against mine, it sets my heart racing in my chest. 

Okay, so maybe I do know why but I can’t really admit it to myself.

Whenever I’m near Rita, it’s like something happens to me. It’s like I suddenly forget how to function anymore. I get all hot in the face, like I’m embarrassed or something, and I can’t stop myself from grinning and grinning. Sometimes, even after I get home, I’m still grinning and Eve raises her eyebrow at me as if to say “Rita, again?”. Whenever I say something that makes her laugh, my stomach flip flops like a fish out of water and I feel so pleased, like I’ve got a retweet from a celebrity or something. Like making her laugh matters more to me than anything in the entire world. Once an eyelash fell onto her cheek during a lesson and I leaned forward to brush it away, my fingers lingering too long against her cheek and I nearly melted under the gaze of her soft, dark eyes. Stuttering, I had panicked and had to ask if I could go to the toilet so that I could splash water on my face and try to cool down. 

It’s kind of difficult to explain. 

“So, you’ve got, like, a crush on her?” My step-sister and trusted confederate, Eve, had said when I’d finally managed to stammer out why I was acting so weird, “Dude, that’s awesome! I was starting to think that maybe, you know, you just didn’t get crushes or something. Not that it would be a bad thing! I dunno. You should ask her out!” 

“I’m not saying I have a crush on her,” I replied, almost embarrassed as I scrolled through my phone.

Eve crawled over on the sofa and rested her head on my shoulder, watching me idly scroll through Instagram.

“Lauren’s got a crush!” She teased, in a singsong voice, “Lauren and Rita sitting in a tree-“

I spluttered with laughter, “Are you five years old or something?”

Although some people think she’s older, Eve is actually younger than me by a year. Sometimes, she’s acts as if she’s ten years older and incredibly wise from her long life of experiences. She does give good advice, though her honesty and lack of pretence usually seems to make me squirm. But most of the time, Eve acts about half her age. She says it’s her job, as the little sister, to annoy me until the end of time. I always tell her that it’s impressive how quickly after we met for the first time that she filled that role. She’s proud of it. 

I stopped scrolling when a picture of Rita comes up on my feed. It’s a grinning selfie of her, one arm slung around her sister Raine, and they seem to be out in the pouring rain. Her hair is damp around her shoulders but her eyes are bright with life. Eve was still peering over my shoulder. I waited for her to deliver the line she was biting down on, eager to tease. 

“So, summer wedding?” She asked, finally, and I smacked her with a cushion. 

Even now, I still can’t admit to myself that I have a crush on Rita. It’s not that I’m homophobic or anything- after all, I live with my dad and his husband- but I just presumed that I was straight and it’s kind of difficult to lose that mindset. I guess I had been pretending so long that the lines where reality and pretend meet had began to blur in my mind. Suddenly, I couldn’t be so sure of myself. I couldn’t work out what was pretence and what wasn’t anymore. I shifted between pretending and confusion, no idea who I really was behind the boy-loving persona I’d spent so many years building up. It didn’t help that I’d never really had a crush before. Not on a boy or a girl or anyone. The whole feeling was completely alien to me like I was watching a movie about somebody else, not playing the lead role but watching it from the audience. It’s still alien to me now. I know I have a crush on Rita but it doesn’t feel real until I see her and my heart starts pounding again. Then, it feels more real than ever. 

A hand waves gently in front of my face, snapping me out of my thoughts, “Hellooo? Rita to Planet Lauren?”

Sitting up, I mumble something about worrying about exams. It's close enough to the truth, since I _am_ worried about them. I'm not doing anywhere near as well as I thought I would. But at least if I pretend hard enough, I can make the thoughts about exams disappear for a while. Rita is nearly always in my line of sight and if she isn't, I can picture her when I close my eyes. Not in a creepy way, duh. I just mean I see her nearly everyday and have done since I was five and… well, she’s beautiful. Beautiful people are kind of hard to forget, I think, especially if they’re beautiful without even realising it. 

Rita sits up too and one of her hands lands on top of mine, “Don't worry, you're going to be brilliant. I just know it.” 

The feeling of her hand resting on mine sends adrenaline rushing through my body, making my heart flutter impatiently like a butterfly. Rita always makes me feel like my insides have filled up with butterflies, like one day they’ll all burst out of me and flutter away. But like, in a romantic way. Her smile is warmer than the sunshine and it makes me feel all buttery inside, melting into the plastic of the climbing frame. It’s this moment that I realise I can’t pretend any longer; I’m totally, utterly in love with her. My face burns hot as I smile back at her, almost shyly. When Rita squeezes my hand, I nearly topple off the climbing frame in surprise. 

“If you don't ask her out soon, I'm going to do it for you,” Eve announces from the doorway, when she finds me lying face down on my bed. I glance up briefly to look at her. She’s standing with one hand on her hip, chin up, as if she’s just caught me eating peanut butter from a jar or something and is singsong threatening to tell Dad. Her posture relaxes and her face softens when she sees the embarrassment still burning hot on my face. I bury my face back into my duvet. 

“Oh my god,” Eve says, solemnly, “What happened? Are you pregnant?”

Without looking, I pick up my pillow and toss it backwards, hoping to hit her in the head. Judging by the noise it makes, it bounces off the doorframe and flops onto the floor. 

I groan into my duvet, “Can you not see I’m busy being overdramatic here?” 

Our Lot had spent the rest of the afternoon at the park, until Becky remembered she had plans in the evening and Tori said she was expected at a dinner thing with her family and the group slowly started to split off, one by one, heading home. All except for me and Rita, who ended up being sprawled on the grass in a pair. I had been threading daisies into a chain, humming along to the song that was blasting from Rita’s phone, and she had been lying on her back looking at the clouds. We chatted. I crowned her with a floppy circle of daisies. 

When I relate this to Eve, she snorts and says, “Gaaaaaaay!”

Eve is a lesbian. 

Anyway… Rita walked me back to my house, since it was on her way anyway, and the back of her hand kept brushing against mine. Maybe she didn't notice because she didn't say anything but every time it happened, it sent a rush through my entire body. I thought maybe she was doing it by accident. She couldn’t be doing it on purpose. Right? Outside my house, she had stopped to hook a loose strand of my hair back behind my ear and for a moment, our eyes had caught. I melted into them, hypnotised. I couldn't stop staring at her, even if I’d wanted to. I found myself looking at her lips, slightly parted and soft, and I wondered for a moment if she was going to kiss me. Her fingers didn’t drop, lightly pressing against my cheek. Barely touching. We waited. 

“See you later, then,” Rita broke the magic spell, stepping back. 

“Alright,” I replied and she waved at me as I floated down the garden path.

It was only after I'd shut the door behind me that I'd realised how stupid I was and my head fell into my hands. That was my chance! I could’ve… I dunno! Said something, kissed her, anything! I’d wanted to kiss her! I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone before. The few boys I’d been out with, I’d always prayed they wouldn’t kiss me. If any of them ever leant in, I’d duck behind my hair and say Dad was expecting me home. Rita… I’d been hoping she would lean in and kiss me. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Was I going crazy?

I'd immediately run up the stairs and thrown myself onto my bed, filled to the brim with fuzzy feelings and embarrassment. Dad had hesitated by the door once, asking if I wanted any garlic bread with dinner as if he was hoping to open up a conversation, but I couldn’t talk about this kind of thing to him. 

“You can't just wait around for things to happen,” Eve flounces into my room and the bed creaks as she sits down beside me, “Remember how annoying it was when Dad and Dave were both waiting for the other one to propose? It drove me crazy! I know it drove you crazy too. What if Rita’s waiting for you?”

Dave is my dad and Eve’s step-dad; they got together a few months after my parents got divorced but it took them years to get round to tying the knot. I don’t think it would have ever happened if Eve and I hadn’t finally intervened. I think part of the reason was because Dad didn't want to upset me. I had been kinda freaked out about the idea of my parents getting together with other people at first. In hindsight, I was kind of a bitch about the whole thing. But at the time, my parent’s divorce really had seemed like the end of my world. 

Still, Eve had her point. We'd watched our parents dance around the topic of marriage so long that in the end, I'd had to convince Dad thoroughly that I was very okay with him getting remarried and even helped him pick out a ring. We’d sloped around fancy jewellery shops all weekend to make sure we got the right one. Besides, it wasn't like I was getting married to Rita. Just asking her out. Kissing her. Whatever came first. I don’t know. It wouldn't be a big deal if I didn't make it one. 

“I'm scared, Eve,” I whine, my words muffled by my duvet. 

“Suck it up, buttercup,” She replies, getting up from my bed, “Can't stay and chat. I have a date.” 

I lift my head up and turned to look at her, “Is it the pizza delivery girl again?”

She just winks at me and picks up the pillow on her way out, tossing it back onto to the bed. It lands on my head, serving to mess up my hair even further, and I grumble. I hear her footsteps on the stairs and the front door opening and closing behind her. Eve is younger than me by nearly a whole year but you wouldn't know it from the way she acts. Sometimes, it feels like she's years ahead of me. Sometimes, I feel like I'm just pretending to be a grown up.

Sometimes, it just feels like I’ve been pretending so long that I don't know how I'm supposed to stop. 

“Okay, Tori,” Rita pops a handful of M and Ms in her mouth, chewing on them as she speaks, “I dare you to order me a pizza.”

Tori rolls her eyes, playing along, “Pepperoni or Hawaiian?”

“Hmmmm… Pepperoni and mushroom,” Rita decides, stroking her chin as if giving it a lot of thought.

I pull a face at her flavour combination and flick through the latest Instagram stories on my phone out of habit. I’m pleased to see The Ark are going to be releasing another album soon- I’ve been into them since they got proper big. Since my impromptu coming out at the dinner table a few weeks ago, Eve likes to tease that Rowan is the only exception to my being a lesbian. I don’t really have a crush on him. He just seems cool. When I glance back up, Tori seems to be ringing for pizza on her phone.

Becky takes a gulp from her cup and complains, “You guys never take this game seriously.”

She scopes out the room for someone to truth or dare herself, to properly show them how it’s done. Eventually, her eyes fall on me and she realises that I’m looking at her. Our eyes meet. I swallow my mouthful of M and Ms, like a rabbit caught in the headlights, and my heart beats hard in my chest. When I came out, I told my family I’m not sure I’m ready for anyone else to know yet. I’m not ashamed or something. It’s just something I want to keep to myself right now. But now whenever somebody looks at me funny, I panic. Eve’s so chatty, I wouldn’t be surprised if she let it slip my accident.

“Lauren,” Becky adopts a wicked smile, “Truth or dare?”

I can tell she wants me to pick dare. From the expression on her face, it’s clear that she’s brewing something crazy, probably something where I run naked around the garden or something. I don’t want to risk it. 

“Truth,” I level, unblinking.

She doesn’t break her grin, “Tell us about Eve’s tattoo.”

Confused, my brows furrow and my mouth falls open, “Uh?”

Tori has finished her prank call, (I presume), to her boyfriend, (I presume), and has returned to lazing across the sofa, “Becky saw the two of you leaving that tattoo parlour a few weeks ago. She jumped to conclusions.”

“If anyone could convince a tattooist they were already eighteen, it would be Eve,” Rita added. 

Things click into place in my mind. Not long after my eighteenth birthday, I had reasoned (maybe after a few drinks) that getting a tattoo would be pretty cool and had confessed, as I usually do, in Eve. What I had not expected was for her to jump on the idea and insist on coming with me. It was exciting, even sober, and I had ended up choosing a butterfly. It reminded me of Rita- the way looking at her filled me with butterflies. I hadn’t told Eve the real reason I’d picked that design. It hurt like a bitch to get done and Eve had poked fun at me for having a tattoo in a place that I couldn’t even see. But that was what I liked about it. It was just for me. 

It was only visible when I whipped my hair into a ponytail, which I never did now that we didn’t have to do PE anymore, and I’d resolved to tell Our Lot about it when the moment came. Unsurprisingly, the moment never did come. Maybe I do wait around too much for things to fall into place for me. If anything, the moment would be now but with everybody’s eyes fixed on me, I cave under the pressure and take the easy way out.

“You’d have to ask Eve about it,” I shrug, scratching the back of my neck. Becky boos me. 

I hate that pretending is easier. This is the thing… I’m not a shy person on the surface. People presume I’m pretty confident because fake it till you make it, right? But I hate being under pressure, everybody looking at me like that. I’m always scared I’ll do or say something wrong and nobody will want to be friends with me anymore. I guess I’ve been scared of that sort of thing since my parents divorced. So, I pretend. 

“Rita, truth or dare?” Becky cuts off my train of thought.

“Dare!” Rita replies, boldly. I wish I could be brave. 

It's a few weeks later and I'm wishing I brought a jacket as I stand under the bus shelter with most of Our Lot. As expected, the warm day was a one off and we’re back to horrible English weather- at least it's stopped raining and most of the puddles have dried up. Still, it's too cold to stand outside for twenty minutes without a jacket and a natty old pair of fishnets. Becky told us to dress up. Which, of course, when you're going to a party, means dressing down. I’ve borrowed a pair of Eve’s heels. 

“I’m freezing my tits off,” I mutter. 

Only Rita laughs, “You knew it was going to be cold. It was raining earlier!”

“Maybe it was going to warm up,” I shrug, “Besides I don’t have any nice jackets and Becky said to dress nice.”

“You could’ve worn that pink and green raincoat you used to wear at primary school,” Rita teases, “That was _very_ high fashion.”

“Shut up,” I push her lightly, jokingly, and she laughs again. 

“Look, here,” Rita shrugs her jacket off and helps me slip my arms into it. Underneath her denim jacket, she’s wearing a burgundy hoodie. No wonder she isn’t cold. It’s what Eve would definitely refer to as Bisexual Chic. Her jacket is soft denim, not the nasty scratchy kind, and it smells like her body spray and her shampoo. The sleeves fall over my hands, “There. Now you won’t freeze to death!” 

“Stop flirting, you two,” Tori says, as she finally arrives with Michael in tow. 

I feel my face turning very hot but Rita just beams at her, joking around and asking if she’s jealous. Tori sticks her tongue out and leans into Michael’s shoulder in response. As the only one of Our Lot with a steady boyfriend who didn’t turn out to be a nutcase, Tori has a trump card over all of us. 

“Watch out, Michael, Rita’s going to steal her if you’re not looking,” I manage to joke and he smiles at me, brightly. The way his mismatched eyes size me up makes me suspect he might know more than he lets on. About me, I mean. Something about him always gives me that kind of vibe. 

As we stand around, I find myself tilting back my head to look up at the evening sky, which is starting to fill with stars. I've always enjoyed going out at night. I guess it's the feeling of freedom you get from wandering around in the dark, something you're never allowed to do as a kid. Suddenly, everything seems totally possible, like you could commit a crime and get away with it. Walking around at night makes me feel like I'm in some kind of liminal space, a sort of limbo, where nothing during the day matters anymore. It's as if the real world is whisked away and the world lit by streetlights is nothing but an empty copy. Kinda like The Other World from Coraline. You know, minus the creepy button eyes. 

Rita leans her head against my shoulder, “Pretty.”

I can only assume she’s talking about the sky but when I glance at her, she’s looking at me. 

We take the bus to whatever party Becky’s heard about, a little too far to walk, and it's in a house that is big but empty, reminiscent of everything I love about being out at night. It seems like it could be abandoned, wallpaper peeling off the walls, but a blaring stereo system and bright lights suggest otherwise. Maybe it's simply uncared for or maybe they haven't finished moving in. I don’t know whose house it is. 

“Whose house did you say it was?” I ask Becky but she doesn't hear me over the music, so instead I turn to Tori, who shrugs at me. 

The house is crowded with teenagers, students, and stoners, an odd mishmash of people not quite ready to act like grown ups, and I join a couple of people from another school on the stairs. I know it might seem like I’m a bit awkward but that's only really when I'm around Rita. Besides, with other people, I can always make something up if I don’t have anything interesting to say. A good storyteller never lets truth get in the way. I have no problems chatting with a pair of boys and a pretty girl, who has piercing stuck through her nose, about A Levels and how we should probably be studying instead of being here. I laugh. I drink. I smile.

After a few drinks, I feel like I'm floating through the house, mingling with ease, which usually means I'm a bit tipsy. I wander down the long hallways as if I’m in a maze, my fingers tracing along the old wallpaper as I pass people by. Time passes. I chat some more. I dance. I laugh. Alcohol makes loosening up so much easier. 

When I start to feel hot, I wander outside to get some fresh air and spot Rita sitting next to the wilting flower-beds, trying to coax them back to life by emptying her cup onto them. She's tipsy too but not wasted. Rita isn't the kind of person that gets wasted. She always seems to be in control. She has taken her hoodie off and wrapped it around her waist, despite the chill still hanging in the air outside. Although I was starting to feel warm, I’m suddenly grateful to be wearing her jacket. 

For a minute, I study her as if I’ve never seen her before. How she rests on her knees on the damp grass and the way her back arches as she leans across the flower-beds. Her hair tumbles over her shoulder, reflecting the warm yellow light coming from the house. I can hear the faint sound of her humming to herself. A smile spreads across my face, so wide it almost aches, and I drift over to her. 

“Heeeeeeeeey, Rita,” My mouth still tastes sticky and sweet from my last drink, so I might be approaching something that requires a stronger word than tipsy. I drop onto my knees next to her and struggle to know what to do with my hands. I decide to keep them folded on my lap. 

She glances up and beams at me, “Hey, stranger.” 

“Whatcha doing?” I asked, making a big show of peering at the plants in order to lean in close to her, “These plants are, like, completely dead. I don't think you can save them unless you have secret superpowers.”

“Oh, I totally do,” Rita says, making me laugh, “I was just waiting for the right time to tell you.”

It was only once I leaned in that I spotted something on her collarbone, “Hey, Rita, what's that?” 

I hadn’t noticed it before because her hoodie had engulfed her. Now that she was just wearing a loose-fitting top, it was hard not to notice as she shifted backwards away from the flower-bed and the neck of her shirt fluttered in the wind. Suddenly, Rita looks embarrassed as if she was hoping I wouldn't notice. She fiddles with the neck of her shirt, as if she doesn’t know whether to cover the tattoo or show it to me.

“Oh, you know, it was my eighteenth a week and a half ago-” I remember, I had been at the party and we had jokingly slow-danced together, holding onto each other tightly, “So I thought…” Rita pauses, “Actually, I got the idea from when you went with Eve. My sister went with me to get it,” She giggled, looking slightly guilty, “My parents would kill me if they knew.”

While she spoke, she gently pushed the collar of her shirt out of the way so that I could gaze at her collarbone. For a moment, I was so hypnotised I forgot what I was even supposed to be looking at. You know in Cluelesss when it says that boys like seeing girl’s skin because it reminds them of… You know? Sex? I think it applies to lesbians too. I had to blink myself back into focus, feeling warm again, and concentrated what I was supposed to be looking at. Suddenly, a rush of dejá vue came over me. Butterflies swirled in my mind. 

Eve likes to say that when a moment feels suddenly familiar or like it’s happened before, it’s because something similar happened in your past life and you're suddenly remembering it or something like that. In this case, it was something from my current life that struck me as familiar not anything from my past life. 

Rita had a tattoo. And not just any tattoo but an eerily familiar one; an incredibly delicate and precise image of a butterfly decorated her collarbone. 

“I wasn't going to say anything because I know that none of Our Lot have tattoos yet,” Rita explains, hurriedly, “And I didn't want anyone to let it slip by accident around my parents in case o-” She stopped, puzzled by my expression, “Lauren, are you going to hurl?”

I shook my head, slowly, though I felt a bit jittery. 

My hands were shaking slightly as I whipped my hair up and twisted it into a knot. I bent my head down, my forehead almost pressed into the earth, so that she could see the back of my neck. It was a spot that was always covered by my hair, which was exactly why I had chosen it in the first place. Something just for me, I had thought, but now sharing it with Rita seemed like the most important thing in the entire world. She would only be the second person to see it since Eve and I had only seen it in photos. It felt like I was sharing something intensely personal, intensely private. Maybe it was because I was drunk… But the part of me that wanted to hide, to shy away, to pretend suddenly seemed very far away. I didn’t want to pretend anymore. 

I couldn't see Rita’s face but I knew the expression that would be displayed on it. I'd seen it before. Her eyes would widen and her mouth would open as if she was about to speak. She would shake her head. No words. Just like when she’d walked out of the cinema after Rogue one. 

After a few moments, I lifted my head back up and loosened my grip on my hair, allowing it to fall back into place. I was surprised to see that instead of looking shocked, like I expected, Rita was grinning. 

“Oh my god, you guys are soulmates!” Eve pronounces the next morning, when I recount the story of the matching tattoos through my hangover, “Stuff like that only happens when you meet your soulmate!”

I flip the TV channel to some type of panel show, “Don't be so dramatic.”

Secretly, though, I was just as excited as she was. I couldn't remember much of the night after that, with the exception of singing karaoke with Becky and throwing up in my neighbour’s recycling bin on the way home. Flashes of Rita’s face and her knee pressing against mine on the bus stuck out in my mind but they were blurry and incoherent. I had an intense memory of Just After, when we had sat in silence and I had stared at her dark eyes, her soft lips, longing to trace her collarbone. I didn't think we'd kissed or anything. But the moment had felt… Heavy. Intense. I know I tend to be a bit over-dramatic but it was like the planets had aligned overhead or something. I remember feeling as I walked under the streetlights from the bus stop that everything was different now. Everything… Felt different. Swirly. That was when I had to be sick in my neighbour’s bin. 

“You _have_ to tell her you like her now!” Eve tells me, “The whole fucking universe is trying to get you guys together.” 

“Language, Eve,” Dad calls from the kitchen, proving he is, in fact, listening in. 

Leaping to her feet, Eve stands up on the sofa, “I'm right, though, aren't I?” 

She's probably right. I’d never tell her to her face for fear of turning her smug but she usually is.

Although I try to focus on the panel show, my head aches and I can't help but wondering what would happen if I just went for it. You know, stopped waiting? Maybe last night was the big moment I was waiting for. Even now, the same feeling from last night is still swimming through me. The feeling that something big has happened. Some big change I could have never predicted. What if I walked up to Rita at school tomorrow and asked her to go on a date with me? What would she say? Yes? No? That wicked grin of hers, telling me she’s been waiting for this? What would happen if the next time she reached in to tuck my hair behind my ear, I surprised her by leaning in to kiss her? Would she lean in or try to hide behind her hair? The thoughts swim around my mind, despite my efforts to concentrate on something else. My head throbs.

Kissing Rita would be scary but exciting. It would be scary because it would mean no more pretending, no more playing at being “Lauren who's picky about boys”. The idea of not pretending to be somebody else terrifies me. I’ve been doing it for so long that I’m not even sure if I know how to be anyone else. How to be myself, completely and entirely. At the same time, it would be so exciting to finally taste her lips against mine. To feel her soft hair between my fingers as I kiss her. Soulmates. Could they really exist? Could Rita be mine? She's been there as long as I can remember. From the first day of primary school. 

I’m scared that if I stop pretending, I’ll lose everything; but maybe it’s worth risking for Rita.

“Just be cool,” Eve is psyching me up the next day, as she slings her backpack over her shoulder and closes the front door behind us, “If she doesn't want to kiss you or whatever, she'll tell you. It'll be totally fine.”

“It's easy for you to say,” I roll my eyes, “You've done this stuff like a million times before. It's fine for you. I've never even kissed somebody before. What if I'm terrible? What if she _hates_ me?”

Eve shrugs at me, “You'll figure it out. I'm sure you won't be that bad.” 

The whole way to school, I'm conjuring imaginary scenarios and watching them play out in my head. In at least half of them, maybe more, Rita rejects me and I never see her again. In another quarter of them, all of my friends abandon me and I never leave my bedroom. The anxiety builds up under my skin, making me sweat and my breathing comes out funny. Eve seems to sense I'm freaking out because for once, she keeps her smart comments to herself. Usually she'd tease me for spending so much time on my hair or fussing over my skirt but today, it's nothing but radio silence. She hovers silently at my side the whole way to school, like an angel and a devil would perch on a cartoon character’s shoulders. She silently urges me to be brave. 

I remember the first time I met Rita. I remember how, on the first day of primary school, I met a little girl in a pinafore dress with two long braids who was playing with the chalks out on the playground. I remember how she looked up and grinned at me. I remember how she said we were best friends right away. 

“You'll be great,” Eve assures me, when we reach the school gates and she splits off when she spots her girlfriend, who I have fondly dubbed Hockey Girl. Needless to say, her and the pizza girl didn't end up working out but Eve is okay with that. She knows one day she’ll find the right person. 

Alone now, I continue inside until I find a handful of Our Lot sprawled around the common room. I hope I don’t look too clammy, like I’m coming down with flu, or too panicked. Tori seems to be taking a nap with her earphones in, much to the amusement of Becky, who is stacking pencils on her forehead while she sleeps. 

“Have any of you lot seen Rita?” I ask, almost shyly, as I approach.

Becky shrugs at me, “Try one of the computer blocks? She might be printing off her homework or something.” 

It's as good an idea as any, I guess, so I turn on my heel and head off to check the computer blocks. As I'm leaving, Tori awakens suddenly and sends pencils clattering to the floor and Becky’s friendly laughter follows me down the corridor. 

I remember how I crying at my tenth birthday party. Something had gone wrong, something stupid like Dad buying the wrong streamers or something, and my parents had ended up fighting in the kitchen while I sat on the stairs. They had pretended everything was fine once the party started- I learned to pretend from the best- but I couldn’t shake it. When I had to blow out the candles on the cake, encouraged to make a wish, I had promptly burst into tears. It had been Rita, who had comforted me, hugged me, trying to make me smile. She stayed after everyone else had gone home to cheer me up. She didn’t want me to be sad on my birthday.

I clatter through the school, searching for any familiar glimpse of dark hair or flashing grin, but I don't spot her anywhere. I do mistakenly grab her younger sister, Raine by the arm, and then have to apologise profusely and explain I need to find her sister to talk about, uh, geography homework. As I jog away, Raine reminds me with a knowing look that neither of me or Rita does geography. The closer it gets to the bell, the more urgent it seems that I find Rita. Lunch suddenly seems like way too long to wait. I’ll get too scared if I wait for lunch. 

In the end, Becky is right and I find Rita swearing at a printer in one of the computer rooms. Suddenly, I feel shy again and I freeze in the doorway, having to force myself to keep moving.

“Rita!” My voice comes out funny, high pitched, “Hey!”

She whips around, surprised, “Oh, hey, Lauren. Are you okay?”

I remember how she was there for me the entire time the divorce was happening and the months afterwards where everyone outside of my family just seemed to expect me to move on. Rita hugged me while I cried. She reasoned with my anger when Dad announced he had met somebody new. She was the first person I wanted to introduce Eve too. Rita was the first person to stay the night at the new house. She loved it. 

“I've just… You know, I've been thinking about this for a long time. I'm not really sure what to say or do or whatever,” I ramble, unable to stop myself from blurting out.

“Wha-”

I remember seeing her cry for the first time, after we got our GCSE results and she hadn’t got a high enough grade to do the A Level course she wanted. She thought she had let everybody down. She thought that she was a failure. I had wrapped my arms around her shoulders and promised her she wasn’t. Exams were stupid. They weren’t real. There were so many more important things in life, which made her smile through her tears.

“I really, really, REALLY like you but if you just want to be friends or whatever, that's okay too, I guess, and-”

Rita’s entire face turns pink, “Oh my god, Lauren.”

I feel slightly dizzy, slightly drunk, “This is so awkward, you're totally straight, aren't you? Oh my g-”

I remember: every major event in my life, she was there. Rita has been my side and I’ve been by hers, for as long as I can remember. Since I first met that little girl with the two long braids, who liked to play with chalks. I have no idea how much of my life I’ve spent falling in love with her. 

“I like you too!” She steps towards me, unusually nervous, “I, um, I didn't want to say anything until I was sure you felt the same. When I'm around you, I feel… Totally different. In a good way, obviously.” 

A year seven in the corner of the room logs off their computer and books it out of there, obviously embarrassed to have witnessed our awkward confessions. For a second, Rita stares at me before we both burst out laughing. I laugh until my tummy hurts, feeling… Relieved? Part of me is glad that none of my nightmare scenarios played out, where Imaginary Rita hates me, and part of me knows instantly that there was never any chance of that happening. Rita isn’t like that. And… She likes me. She like likes me.

It doesn’t come as shock to me. I wonder how long I’ve actually known deep down.

“Hey,” Her hand reaches out and takes mine, her fingers slipping easily between mine. I thought I was hot from panicking but her hand is equally as warm, as if she’s nervous too, and she squeezes me tightly as if to make sure I’m still here. When I look up, she’s staring at me. Her dark, soft eyes draw me in automatically. My heart starts pounding in my chest, as we look at each other long hard. It’s as if the last fourteen years of my life are playing out in front of me, watching our lives unfold, and it’s like I’m looking at a stranger for the first time. Her other hand creeps up to rest on the back of my neck, where a butterfly flutters nervously. I watch her lips.

Taking a deep breath to steele myself, I lean into Rita’s lips. I stop pretending.


End file.
